Dual Pistols, I am disappoint.

So since I returned not long ago (4 months but last 2 barely played) GR is still new to me.

So I made a Blaster, a DP/Fire. Not usually a Blaster player, but every time I made one I was 'OMG IM DOING SO MUCH DMG' before level 10.

Problem is, I'm not feeling it with DP, and I'm 22. Empty Clips feels like I'm tickling mobs. I know it's the same damage as Fistful of Arrows but Fistful doesn't have a long animation. Also not a fan of having to get in melee and spin for 1 minute for the nuke.

And since I love the animations, I want to know if DP works better on a corr (I rarely play Defs). What do you guys think? I was considering pairing it with /dark for extra damage, mitigation, heal, well you know how good dark is, and I could use the nuke with much more safety.

Other suggestions are welcome (haven't leveled /Thermal and /Cold too although I think /Cold would be better on a troller, Pain is out of the question because the set is too busy and I played my Mind/Emp for over 9000 hours, /Ta too because I honestly find it very very lacking) if you tell me DP works well on Corrs, because frankly, although I'm not a blaster player, all the ones I've made impressed me from the start with their damage, but this one not even on SOs. I don't expect fire blast performance of course, but I'd like to know if it's better on corrs which is an AT I love.

First off, do you have Swap Ammo, and if so, what ammo are you using? Using the firey ammo can add significant (though still not OMG) damage over the other options.

Secondly, remember that damage over time never *feels* as good as instantaneous damage, even if the numbers are the same.

Finally, I have definitely heard of people being happy with DP corruptors. The debuff numbers for the Cryo and Chem ammo is better on corrs, at least.

Dual Pistol/Kinetics Corruptor. Everything is a game changer after Fulcrum Shift.

That's my favorite Dual Pistols combo.

And I looove getting into melee to use the nuke, so now sure what to suggest there. My DP/Kin simply converts insps to purples and makes sure he is at the soft cap of defense before he charges in to nuke.

Empty clip is like immolation of fire melee, where hail of bullets is fire sword circle.

One does 'hmm..' damage while the other does '.. ooh nice' damage. Though combined with their nuke, combined it all will addup and does decent ammount of damage.

But why wouldnt you go melee? /fire is pretty much based on pbAoE, nuke for knockdown, wrap up with Hail and finish with fire circle, while your dot-aura ticks along.

DP/Fire seems like a good combo. Get close, drop DP's AOEs and Fire's AOEs... profit. The DOTs should scare some opponents, which is a little bit of mitigation. Not bad, right? If you're feeling a little underpowered, decrease your opponents' level, but increase the quantity. Those AOEs will start to shine a bit more under those conditions. Also, Swap Ammo to Incendiary. It's the only ammo type that's worthwhile, IMHO. Maybe the default ammo's KB is worthwhile if you want a little more mitigation.

If you go Corruptor, my initial thought is always "Kin!" Fulcrum Shift + Hail of Bullets sounds delectable. DP/Traps would be great, too. So many of those Corruptor secondaries are great, though. I'd avoid TA to stay out of redraw hell, but a case can be made for anything else.

Oh I like the /Fire part, in fact after I got FSC I thought 'oh so Blasters still do OMG damage, like I remember' - I was actually thinking I had wrong past impressions, but then I rolled a dark blast/mm last week and she started out very strong even DB not being fire or ice blast. I was planning on a PbAoE blaster - hot feet, FSC, Hail, well ya know, stuff

The Arch/EM I got to 20ish once started out kinda weak too but once I got Blazing Arrow the feeling went away, and I knew there were more good stuff ahead (if I had gotten him past 20ish), I saw RoA several times and it rocks as most of you know.

So my problem is DP. Yeah I do have Swap Ammo, I prefer regular when soloing and fire when teaming, the stuff everyone says. But I'm rolling a corr then... I'm feeling too squishy, again not because she's a blaster, but because I find DP is too lacking in damage for the animations, I hadn't planned to pick the stun/hold shot and ended up getting it. Also besides DP/MM which I could use Drain Psyche before I can't think of any blaster combo that would make me use the nuke safely, while a DP/Rad, DP/Dark corr could (thinking tar patch, fearsome stare, fluffly, all the -tohit, sounds yummy).

I just hope I don't feel the damage is too low on a corr... I like Beam Rifle's damage for example.

I absolutely love my DP/Kinetics Corruptor. Pretty much any Corruptor secondary is going to improve on DP thanks to the debuff making your attacks more effective. Even then from a pure numbers perspective you're not necessarily going to exceed the DPS a Blaster can do with DP.

As above, I'd recommend either DP/DM or DP/MM for a Blaster. Fire Manipulation is a great set, but IMO not as good as DM or MM when combined with DP.

DP is definitely not on par with Fire Blast or Psychic Blast for damage, but I'm more interested in theme/concept than sheer numbers in most cases. My DP Blaster is /Dev, but it works great for the concept and I never play him solo so I've not personally been disappointed with the set. I also really like the animations, so there's that.

Due to wide and unjustified complaints, they gave hail of bullets a large defense bonus for the duration of the root time, while also increasing its damage. Anyone can use it more safely than any other pbaoe nuke.

Empty clips is merely passable but bullet rain is excellent. Inferno rounds are better solo or teamed unless you're having a lot of difficulty keeping things out of melee range for some reason.

DP is painful. I had one and I'm pretty much done with it.

The only blaster I played that I actually liked so far was Fire.

An attack that DoTs 100 damage is inferior to an attack that bursts 100 damage. That is part of what holds Dual Pistols back from being the set it could have been. That, and the Swap Ammo gimmick not having any real payoff, as Blasters make obvious.

WARNING: I bold names.

I have a Dark/DP Defender that is the ONLY Defender that I've ever played past lvl 14. I love him. The Dark set is very controllery, and you can use Swap Ammo to great effect as a support character rather than worrying so much about damage. Toxic ammo is especially nice for it's -dam and Cold is great for the slow effect.

Dz, my point is that having the dot baked into the animation time is if anything an advantage, not a drawback. What's more likely to waste damage on overkill: An attack that has a 2.5 second animation and does 200 damage in ten parts over that 2.5 seconds, or an attack that has a 2.5 second animation and does 200 damage all at the end? In fact, they'll both overkill by the same amount, there is no difference at all, but one difference that does exist is that the dot will be much more likely to give you the kill, rather than a teammate. Not necessarily an exciting advantage but the fact remains that the dot power is better than the chunky power if only in a superfluous way.

Dual Pistols, in my opinion is at its best if you build with AoE in mind. In other words, you will not have the slots or AoEs you will need at level 22 to make the set shine.

The last two powers in DP really changes how the set plays dramatically. Very similar to AR (Ignite and Full Auto). The difference is you can actually build a decent AR build without Ignite or Full Auto (Ex. Buckshot, Grenade Launcher, Flame Thrower).

You can't do that with Dual Pistols as both Piercing Rounds and Hail of Bullets are too important to pass up. What holds DP back is Empty Clips' animation time, which either needs to be reduced, or Empty Clips needs to do more damage than Buckshot and Fistfull of Arrow.

I really dislike Empty Clips as it gives the wrong impression about DP capabilities. It is a stinker I tend to skip. I tried it again recently but the long animation time coupled with the short range just blows.

I have a 32 DP/Dev I am fairly happy with.

I'm pretty happy with Empty Clips too. I have 6/6 Kinetic Crash in it. Its great I can turn KB on or off by selecting ammo type.

Even with Kinetic Crash not being heavy with damage it still hits reasonably hard. Yes it makes a lot of small numbers on screen. If you watch the health bars of the targets rather then the little numbers you get a more accurate Idea of how hard it hits. Keep in mind that Empty Clips also does a debuff and recharges fairly fast.

It is nice I can walk up to a group start an AOE chain with empty clips and end the chain with empty clips with out a pause.

Just hit 32 and got my T9 power. It is a very nice addition to the set. At first it was Holy **** I am standing here shooting these guns forever! It really seems to get the job done and will only get better with more slots.